


The love of a family

by Rogercat



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Disowning, Elves, F/M, Family Drama, Father-Daughter Relationship, Father-Son Relationship, Fatherhood, Gen, Gift Fic, Grandparents & Grandchildren, Halls of Mandos, Mother-Son Relationship, Motherhood, Rebirth, Spiritual, The Avari, The Noldor, hinted sexuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-11 12:20:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11714271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rogercat/pseuds/Rogercat
Summary: Maeglin arrives in the Halls of Mandos after his death, and Turgon learns the hard way that he messed up badly when it comes to his family relations





	The love of a family

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MayLovelies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MayLovelies/gifts).



> Author’s note: this is a stand-alone work for now, but maybe I can try write something related to it later in the future. Also, this is in no way related to my other works outside some shared OC characters. NOT grammar checked at the time of posting, may change that later

Pain. Pain everywhere. It was all Maeglin could focus on for the moment. His mind, fogged from the agony of his different injuries, tried to make him stay awake. If he passed out, who knew what may happen…

“I know that I hit the rocks straight on in the fall...does that mean this...place is the Halls of Mandos?”

Dark around him, yes, yet it was a soothing darkness similar to the one he had known in Nan Elmoth, only with the difference that this was more of a white light freely coming from small flowers rather than the blue and purple light from the glowing swamps growing on the trees. Taking a deep breath to steady himself for the coming pain, Maeglin attempted to move. It went slowly, and more than once he feared to pass out.

“I have to move away...if someone from Gondolin sees me...they will not listen to my attempts to explain…!”

By now, his betrayal had to become known, the more of the Elves living in Gondolin who linked his vanishing and the attack from Angband together once they gathered together here in the Halls. And naturally, they would believe that he had done it all in order to get Idril as the prize, when in reality Maeglin never had loved her in the manner rumours said. In fact, they had rarely even spoken outside custom greetings and such at court, their upbringing and characters being too different for them to really find a shared common ground for a friendship to start on. Besides, Maeglin had always preferred males over females, even if he could admit that if a lady had the right personality and charm, he could be drawn to her as well. That was something he had never needed to be ashamed of in Nan Elmoth, unlike his later life in Gondolin and one of his biggest regrets about leaving his birthplace.

 

Maeglin knew that he had broken the right arm in the sword fight against Tuor, and his opposite left leg had a terrible open wound in the flesh on the shin. Had he still been alive in a body of flesh and blood, he would have bleed out to death.

“And Idril always looked so offended when I would call her mortal husband a bear in terms of strength and body build!”

Being roughly the same height had not helped Maeglin at all in the sword fight, and neither Tuor or Idril had listened to him when he had tried to say that he had only grabbed Eärendil to prevent the brat from running off blindly in his attempt to find his missing parents in the chaos. Imagine if Eärendil had been killed by a stray orc just because no one of the panic-stricken adults around him had failed to keep him safe!

“No good...my ribs are broken as well…”

Maeglin was surprised over that he still managed to stay awake from all his injuries, but guessed that it likely came from being a spirit now. With a new deep breath, he took one first, shaking step deeper into those spiritual woods. It was in a forest he had been born and spent his first 80 years in, so he knew how to find shelter.

 

He needed to walk slowly, often tripping over tree roots and needing to rest against a tree due to not being able to see properly since he had received a severe concussion in the fall towards his death, yet Maeglin started to feel more safe after a while.

“That sound...a forge?”

Yes, it was the sound of a hammer working on something of metal on a avril. How could he ever mistake that sound, when his father Eöl had been making such sounds for him as a lullaby when Maeglin had needed to be watched during Aredhel's hunts and Eöl even had build a crib of iron in a safe, quiet corner of his large forge so he still could be close to his young son during work.

“As long as it is not someone from Gondolin...I will ask for a stay so I can heal my wounds…” Maeglin thought with a small ray of hope in his heart. Slowly taking some new steps forwards, he saw that this part of the spiritual forest seemed to have been inhabited for some longer time, if the hand-dug water well made with clay bricks and manhole cover in wood said anything. Smoke a bit away told him where the forge was. Despite being a spirit now, Maeglin acted out of habit from living and pulled up a bucket of water from the well, mindful of his broken arm as he did so. It seemed to be a set of spiritual water, and just drinking a small part of it since he could only use one hand, made him feel much stronger than before and he quit being so dizzy. Even if his wounds did not heal, it did not matter as much after drinking that water.

~X~X~X~X~X~X

But just as Maeglin had placed back the cover over the well and would start limping towards the forge, he heard a voice he had dreaded to hear ever since spotting the first orcs coming towards Gondolin:

“Maeglin?”

Turgon. His uncle looked like a mess, bloodied clothes and a head wound over one eye revealing where the fatal hit by a large marble piece to cause his death had fallen. Had it been any other time, any other place, Maeglin would have laughed over the irony of Turgon getting killed in something he had ordered to be built. But now, with the fresh memory of what he had done, Maeglin wanted nothing else than hiding from him.

“It was you...right? You were the danger Ulmo foretold in the warning he sent Tuor to give me! You betrayed Gondolin because you wanted Idril despite marriage between such close kin is forbidden!”

His wrath made Turgon seem to grow in size. He had always towered over Maeglin, and now it pointed out the difference between them even more.

“N-no! I have never seen Idril in a such way! Please, uncle, believe me…!”

A fist in his stomach caused a wound there to reopen, not to mention that Maeglin spit out blood, also feeling yet another rib of his break at the force. The young Elf collapsed down on his side, seeing in the corner of his eye how Turgon raised a sword he still held. Was it possible to die once more as a spirit? He was in too much pain to bother thinking, only closed his eyes in the hope that it would go quickly.

“ **WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO THAT YOUNGSTER!?!** ”

_CREAK!!_

Turgon saw in shock how his sword was suddenly pushed out of the way from Maeglin by a spear, whose owner sent the former King of Gondolin backwards with a kick in his chest. A new Elf landed on the ground between uncle and nephew, blocking Maeglin from Turgon's sight. A cloak of grey wolf fur blocked any reveal of the face, yet at speaking, the voice hinted to be female:

“The Lord of those Halls have forbidden attempted kinslaying while you spends time here to heal for rebirth! Being a newcomer is no excuse, no one is a exception of that law, no matter what status in life!”

 

As the She-elf talked, she walked over to Maeglin to check on him. Since he could not move from the new pain yet, she helped him to lay down more comfortable on his least injured side.

“I will take you to my son. He may be more shaman than healer, but he knows the use of medicinal herbs better than his own mother…”

Apparently Turgon was in too much emotional chaos and anger over listening to her words, given how he took back his sword and rushed towards them. The female snorted in displeasure.

“By the stars in heaven, you blasted isolated High Kings and that damned pride of yours!” she hissed in anger as she pulled out two smaller javelins to use alongside her spear. Several daggers could now be hinted in her boots and belt.

“Get out of my way, woman! I need to punish this traitor for…!”

But Turgon had underestimated her because of her simple clothing made from fur and weaved flax fabric. She proved herself to be a very formable warrior, using her surroundings to fight Turgon.

“Traitor? _Traitor?!_ This boy shows every sign of those broken by the Dark Lord in his Iron Prison, and you want to punish him for something he did not mean to do?!”

It seemed like she had understood Maeglin behaviour right away, or at least known other people like him. Maeglin himself could only watch in wonder how Turgon was slowly but steady beaten by the unknown Elf, all because he did not know how to build up a defense against her weapons which she switched so every attack was a different javelin or the spear. Even her daggers was used. At one point, Turgon attempted to pull off her fur cloak, only for her to pull it off herself and toss it over Maeglin in a graceful moment of care. In doing so, she revaled herself to be dark golden bronze in skin colour, and her straight hair was a rich chestnut brown. Yet it was the eyes, the black eyes, which seemed oddly familiar for Maeglin…

“I said, get out of my way, woman!”

“Is that a way to address a former leader of a Elven tribe, snotty Noldor brat?! It seems like I need to teach you some manners you Noldor seems to have forgotten back in the West during your time there! Even those Dwarves my son befriended as a Elfling had better manners to address a female on!”

 

The sound of the fight could be heard rather clearly, and now footsteps could be heard coming closer.

“Mother, have you gotten into a fight with one of the Noldor warriors or Doriath nobles again? I have told you that I do not care about them, especially if it is my so-called father who have gotten lost in here again.”

That voice…

Maeglin turned his head around, despite the pain resulting from said movement. In front of him, from where the forge had been, was his father Eöl. The same silver hair held tightly in small braids, the bronze skin which he had inherited a more pale version of thanks to Aredhel, the broad shoulders from a life as a blacksmith.

“Maeglin…?!” Eöl whispered in growing horror at seeing who the newcomer was, and the wounds his son had on his spiritual body. The She-elf, who now had locked Turgon in a movement where he was only a few steps from falling into the well whose cover had been kicked off in the fight, looked between Eöl and Maeglin, then between Eöl again and Turgon. A cold anger could now be seen in her eyes.

“So you are the coward King who stole my grandson and killed my son…!”

As it dawned on Turgon that this She-elf actually could be no one else than Eöl's mother, he was suddenly given a firm kick in the family jewels by said furious brother-in-law who had rushed towards him, quickly followed by a fist to his jaw which sent the Noldor Elf flying over the edge of the well and into it. The sound of his very wet landing, followed by coughing demands to get something to climb up with, was heard.

“That is only the first one of “Thank you for killing me”-responding you are gonna face from me here in the Halls, bastard!” Eöl called down into the well before slamming the cover into place, basically locking Turgon into the darkness of the well. The view of Eöl's worried face beside his unknown paternal grandmother was the last thing Maeglin saw in his blurry vision before fainting from his injuries.

~X~X~X~X~X~X

“...look at him, what have that high-and-mighty royal bastard done to him?!”

“I like most of the family your wife comes from, but that second-oldest brother of hers is not on that list, son. Stealing a heir by not allowing him to leave another place is a serious crime among our tribe, remember?”

Maeglin could hear Eöl mutter angry for himself in Khuzdûl, then feeling something on his injured leg that most likely was a herbal medicine being added to clean the wound before a bandage would be tied around. It did sting horribly, but felt like a ant bite after the resulting scars on his body after the torture in Angband. A wet cloth was placed on his forehead. Maeglin was too tired to open his eyes yet, but soon managed to open one eye at least.

“Eöl, Beril? Are the two of you in the guest room? Have one of my Fëanorian nephews gotten himself caught in a hunting trap made by my daughter again?” a new voice wondered in the distance, a voice Maeglin could not place anywhere in his memory. Someone moved at his side, likely from a chair standing at the bed he was laying in.

“Not one of those boys, master Fingolfin, but you will find the answer out in the water well. Oh, and please send in Aredhel first if she comes along with you today,” Beril responded with something that sounds like she was smirking.

“The water well? Hold on, my son and daughter is there to take a drink…”

Running footsteps as his maternal grandfather hurried out, but Maeglin managed to catch a glimpse of the blue cloak Fingolfin had been wearing as he turned around.

 

Outside, Fingolfin was greeted by the sight of Aredhel giving the soaked Turgon a double slap on both sides of his face with her hands, then pushing him to the ground.

“Ow! Írissë, what are you hitting me for…”

“ **WHAT PART OF ME PLEADING TO LET MY HUSBAND LEAVE, DID YOU MISINTERPRET AS “** ** _PLEASE EXECUTE HIM_ ** **”, YOU IDIOT!?! AND DO NOT EVEN THINK OF BLAMING MY POOR BABY BOY FOR THE FALL OF YOUR BELOVED HIDDEN CITY!** ”

Despite the difference in height, Aredhel attacked her second-oldest brother with all her strength as a hunter. Breaking her prized hunting bow over his head, should be a warning about what she thought in him nowadays.

“And by isolate yourself from the rest of Beleriand, my son Gil-galad had to take up the role of High King for the exiled Noldor outside Gondolin at my death despite only being 22 years old when I died! Fool of a brother!” Fingon added in anger as he gave Turgon a literal kick in the ass when the younger brother tried to raise to his feet.

“By the Valar, what is wrong with you two?! You never act like this in Valinor…”

“ _Because your decision to isolate Gondolin fully from the other Elven realms, even in the times when we would have needed your help, have resulted in you getting yourself and your descendants removed from the line of succession, meaning that neither of you will ever have claim on the throne._ ”

Fingolfin spoke in a cold, commanding voice as he showed up, hinting to the cold fury he rarely allowed to be seen by people outside his own family. Over the years in exile, Turgon had disappointed him over and over again, both when he had been alive and by the news he had gotten here in the Halls. It was time to show where the line had been crossed.

“ _Besides...Anairë and I have, as per our allowed contact by letters from the Halls and Tirion, agreed to_ **_disown_ ** _you as a son of ours. Your act of executing a family member by marriage despite Aredhel pleading for Eöl to be allowed to leave Gondolin, and several other questionable decisions of yours, is not something we can accept, either as parents or as Elves. Therefore, you are_ _no longer_ _a son born from our union of marriage and love._ ”

Turgon had collapsed to his knees in disbelief and shock, trying to collect himself together, his mouth opening and closing again with no sound coming out. He gave Fingolfin and his siblings a pleading look, trying to make them reveal that they were only joking. But their serious faces told him that it was true, all of it.

“And you will not find Elenwë here for comfort over this change in your life, she have already been reborn and in the same act requested your marriage to be dissolved, saying that she can not stand being married to someone who would kill a relative by marriage and abandon family members by blood.”

This seemed to be the breaking point for Turgon, learning that his beloved Vanyarin wife had left him as well. He had lost everything, his family, Gondolin...everything which once had held so strong meaning for him in life. With a wailing sound in despair due to the massive shock over everything that had happened the last twenty-four hours, he raised to his feet and limped away between the trees, unable even now to understand what it was that he had done wrong.

 

It was no surprise that Aredhel hurried inside the moment Fingolfin mentioned that her son was inside the hut, in fact Eöl had to gently block her in the doorway to the guest room in order to tell her that Maeglin showed signs of a concussion and that she had to be careful in hugging him due to his injuries. Thankfully she managed to do so as both mother and son cried in the hug. And Fingon gave his nephew a warm greeting too, hoping that their relationship may become better than the one between Turgon and Maeglin, to which the younger Elf did agree on.

“Is uncle Argon here too?” Maeglin had to ask when not spotting the only uncle he had not met yet.

“My youngest son was reborn only a few years ago, but he requested that his greetings would be passed over to you and that he hopes to meet you in Valinor eventually,” Fingolfin answered, trying to not tire out his oldest grandson by too much talking. Well, that Maeglin could understand, besides, Argon had been pretty young at his death and maybe secretly wished to mature a bit more so he did not act too childish beside his more long-lived elder siblings.

“It felt nice to beat up your former second-born son for killing my only child,” Beril admitted to Fingolfin out in the living room as she looked over the clothes Maeglin had been wearing, all ruined by blood and other things. Too worn to be used again, even with careful lapping the clothes together. Sitting down on a chair, Beril took up the items needed to sew a basic tunic.

“In that case, I am not gonna say anything. Will you mention to your former husband about that your...shared grandson have arrived to the Halls?”

Fingolfin knew that Beril had fallen out with her husband shortly before her death, and that their reunion in the Halls had gone poorly at her learning that he had neglected Eöl after her death.

“No, that bastard can keep that half-breed offspring of his, and those descendants of that girl too. Going and disown his adult son for the creepy girl brat he got with a Maia, how foolish can one person actually be? Anyone with common sense would choose a adult son over a newborn baby girl in the cradle since infants are very unable of leading a tribe…”

Her mutterings under her breath told Fingolfin enough clues to who Eöl had been sired by, and he mentally did agree full heartedly that Maeglin's paternal grandfather was a serious fool when it came to his two children with two different wives.

“And people think that my father Finwë messed up with Fëanor and lady Miriel?” the former High King of the Noldor wondered for himself.

~X~X~X~X~X~X  

Time passed in the Halls. News about events in Middle-earth was pretty evenly updated. Maeglin took the chance to meet distant relatives he had never gotten to meet in life, and with his parents showing to have more of the marriage harmony they had shared during his early years, some of his well-hidden signs of depression was slowly cured. Contacts by letter with his maternal grandmother Anairë and uncle Argon helped a lot, to the point that they all agreed on that once Maeglin was ready for rebirth, he would be sent to the manor outside Tirion where they lived. Anairë had grown a reputation for taking in reborn Elves and help them adjust to life in Valinor through a network of foster families, so masking her own grandson as one of those Elflings would be easier.   

 

“What about you others?” Maeglin asked the evening before he was to be reborn. Outside the disowned Turgon and his paternal grandfather, the whole family was there. Even Gil-galad, who had arrived a couple of years earlier and, pretty understandable, had given his father Fingon a rightful verbal slap about getting himself killed in battle only 16 years after that Fingolfin had died in the same manner against Morgoth.

“We will come after you, a few years at the most,” Aredhel said with a pointed look at Eöl, who only raised a eyebrow as a silent yes. They still needed some marriage therapy with Námo to make some issues in their marriage vanish, but they had come a long way from their unhappy relationship before their deaths and Eöl refused to follow the path of his estranged father when it came to his own relationships.

“I will stay with Gil-galad a while longer, I want to catch up more of the father and son time we never got to do when I was king,” Fingon said from his side of the table, trying to choose between getting more herbal tea and the honey-roasted carrots Beril had made for the family snack. No one was surprised when Beril revealed her plans to explore Valinor at her rebirth since it was a whole new place and she wanted to avoid her former husband if possible when he was reborn as well.

“And I will come with Maeglin as an extra surprise for my wife and youngest son,” Fingolfin smiled as he recalled his hope to rebuild his relationship with Anairë. It was one thing to have contact through letters, and another one to be seen face to face again. With Maeglin's permission, he had told his wife about that their oldest grandson preferred male company when it came to deeper relationships and she had given a teasing hint to possibly help Maeglin find a nice male spouse among the unwed sons of her carefully chosen friendship network.  

~X~X~X~X~X~X  

It was a lovely spring day in Valinor. Outside the few servants, Anairë and Argon lived alone as they did not have new reborn Elf to live under the roof of their home yet.  

“I misses Atar, Ammë. Findekáno and Írissë as well…”

Argon had never truly gotten to learn Sindarin due to dying a lot earlier than the rest of his family, so it was no big surprise that he preferred to speak Quenya. Thanks to Finrod being reborn late in the First Age before the War of Wrath, he knew some basics in Sindarin but he still felt like he could not speak it as well as his family would do.

“Me too, sweetheart. This house is too empty without them.”

They did not mention Turgon, agreeing with the family members in the Halls that he had crossed a line beyond no return by executing Eöl. Finishing the last of his bread bun, Argon looked out over the balcony where they was sitting. He could spot someone walking closer in the distance, and seemed to be carrying a small body in the arms.

“Looks like a Maia chose Elven shape to deliver Maeglin. I will meet them at the gate while you finishes fixing your hair, mother.”

Anairë never allowed people outside family relatives and servants see her with her hair hanging loose in the morning, since she partly wanted to look like the princess by marriage she actually was. Old habits died hard.  

 

The gate tended to be closed at night for safety reasons, so Argon opened it to welcome the newcomers. He had managed to meet Eöl in the Halls, so he could easy see that Maeglin was very look alike his parents, even in the new body of a Elfling roughly six to seven years old. Maeglin himself did not that he would have to be a child again, it was a new start of life for him and it could have been far worse with being reborn as a baby.

“Atar…? Atar, it is you!” Argon cried in joy when Fingolfin removed the hood used to hide his face. Maeglin just narrowly avoided being caught in a crushing hug between them by jumping down on the ground in the last minute. As he looked up towards the manor, a black-haired lady dressed in a lovely mint-green dress could be seen at the balcony.   

“Ñolofinwë?! When did you...no, I am coming down right now! Arakáno, keep him from moving!”

Given their disagreement when all four of their children had came with him, Fingolfin had warned Maeglin that it was a high risk that Anairë would slap him at seeing him again. And that she did once she had hurried out to the gate.

“That, was for not making any of our children follow Arafinwë back home.”

Then she pulled Fingolfin close in a hug, leading to a kiss.

“And this is for coming back to me.”

With his parents distracted by each other, Argon took the chance to present himself to Maeglin, nervously excusing his poor Sindarin and Maeglin took the chance to greet his uncle in Quenya. It seemed to help Argon relax, offering to show the manor since Fingolfin and Anairë currently was too busy with each other, whispering in Quenya while they was crying in joy over being reunited at last after so many years apart.   

 


End file.
